WI: Australian Political System with U.K Parties

What would the system look like? (i.e. leaders past or present, seats in the house of representatives and senate as well as views on policy etc).

Now i'm not exactly sure how parties like UKIP (maybe One Nation perhaps?) or the SNP or any of the Northern Irish/Irish parties would translate to the Australian System. However parties like the Greens would be as is.
 

RyanF

Banned
You'd need some form of federalism for this to ever happen, combined with a reformed upper chamber. A start might be the Liberal Party coming through the Great War better, succeeding in pushing through Home Rule and Lords Reform as proposed before and late in the War respectively. You could just use no WWI as a springboard for that, but either way there's a lot more to be thought of before you arrive at an Oz style UK political scene.

Even after WWII though there is scope for the Conservatives to develop into something akin to the Coalition in Australia; with them functioning as the Liberal Party, the National Liberals as the National Party, the Unionists in Scotland as the Liberal National Party, and the Ulster Unionists as the Country Liberal Party. In using that though it becomes infinitely more difficult to have the rest of UK politics resemble the Australian system.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Liberal Party coming through the Great War better, succeeding in pushing through Home Rule and Lords Reform as proposed before and late in the War respectively
Well, this means all of their main problems were solved successfully and might make them look like the Liberal Party of Canada.
 
To get the party system, the Liberals and the Conservatives merge, which actually did come close to happening at least twice IOTL.

To get the federalism, either the Liberals implement "home rule all around" before the merger successfully, or they are strong enough to get the Conservatives to adopt it as one of the Liberal policies (there will be a few) taken aboard into the merged party.

One thing is that Australia is simply more working class and egalitarian in culture than England (and I mean England specifically), so there is a stronger Labour Party and a greater need for the non-Labour parts of the political system to merge. Also less support for straight, English style Toryism.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Either MacDonald's Government doesn't collapse before Representation of the People (No. 2) Bill makes it through, thus giving Britain AV in boroughs with over 200,000 people (and paving the way for STV), or James Henderson-Steward is able to convince the Liberal Party to fold into the National Liberal Party before the Woolton-Teviot Pact in early 1947. There were a lot of issues with JHS' proposal, such as the Libs hatred for the Nats, but a more unified effort to get the Liberals in could help greatly, such as Macmillan openly offering them PR for Big Cities in exchange for a unified 'anti-socialist front'.

This kills the birds of a unified Liberal/Conservative Party, as well as the electoral system with one stone. However Federalism is a bit of a sticky wicket given the Conservatives historic opposition to it. An earlier devolution through Labour (and what aspects of the Liberals opposing merged with the Tories folding in with the Labs) is most likely, I think. Maybe the Scottish Covenant Association becomes a louder voice in Parliament, possibly leading to the Government taking an all-or-nothing situation on Devolution?

Alternatively, going earlier, the Government of Scotland Bill 1913 passes, though this would require no/delayed First World War.
 
Australia having UK political parties.

So Conservative, Labour, Lib-Dem etc in an Australian context and what they'd be like?

Hmm. Figuring out who would be a Lib Dem might be the most interesting part of this, then. Probably most of the folks who made up the Australian Democrats from the late '70s through the early/mid-aughts, but they're kind of irrelevant now. In the present context, maybe actually Turnbull, as the equivalent of the more classical-liberal "Orange Book" Lib Dems? Or maybe even Paul Keating in terms of policy orientation, though I suspect that his working-class background and tribal ties to Labour would have led him to stay put even in the event of an SDP-style split in the '80s.
 
Hmm. Figuring out who would be a Lib Dem might be the most interesting part of this, then. Probably most of the folks who made up the Australian Democrats from the late '70s through the early/mid-aughts, but they're kind of irrelevant now. In the present context, maybe actually Turnbull, as the equivalent of the more classical-liberal "Orange Book" Lib Dems? Or maybe even Paul Keating in terms of policy orientation, though I suspect that his working-class background and tribal ties to Labour would have led him to stay put even in the event of an SDP-style split in the '80s.

Yeah i was thinking that.

Maybe a slightly more successful Democrats that builds itself up after the success of the 90's instead of withering away in the mid-late 2000's perhaps. Maybe better leadership to weather out the late 2000's, with maybe a guy like Turnbull jumping ship at the right time for them (perhaps after the first Coalition leadership spill that brought in Abbott as opposition leader)? Going further back, maybe a stronger democrats with Keating jumping ship after Hawke refuses to give him the labour party leadership (that wouldn't be a great look however given the time i'd imagine).

As for the Liberals being more conservative. Its basically already happened with Abbott to an extent, if Turnbull isn't there and you have more of the moderate members of the party jumping ship to a stronger Democrats over time leaving Abbott with conservative-esqe party. At least thats how I'd imagine it being so (the party going with more conservative members rather than middle of the road liberals). Not to mention Howard certainly belongs to a more conservative school of thought as it is so I'd imagine this is the easiest to achieve.

Not sure how labour goes left though. Labour left gets a hold of the party at some point?

I could be completely wrong though.
 
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